#readmore is broken

[paradoxbeta]

WHO IS EOC? i am very curious now!!!

>:) okay SO

tumblr picture formatting is utter garbage and i dont want these to take up too much space so im cramming these drawings into one row (or not if this crapsite breaks on me, because it seems to be REALLY fighting me on this, so if it ends up not making a nice little picture row know that i tried my best). but this is effigy of composure!

he has a couple problems, but the big one is that his superstructure has a terrible parasite situation. the parasites are flat, thin, and able to make it into grooves and pipes the inspectors cant reach. flushing out doesnt do much to dislodge them and they breed faster than they can be killed, so theyve happily made their homes in this sheltered, food-rich haven (to the obvious distress and horror of the host iterator). originally the concept for these parasites were much closer to centipedes and had the placeholder name "synapcipedes," but ive since started leaning more towards an obvious tapeworm motif for them because its gross and i enjoy it morbidly. it also has some pretty cursed implications if you think about it for too long which i have decided are funny/really disgusting/so stupid that they have to stay. i still flipflop between considering them centipedes vs tapeworms though and i dont think thatll ever be rigidly defined. the ambiguity is nice to toy with

on the top 10 list of "things that are not fun" having turbo worms has to be somewhere up there, so eoc has it *rough,* and kind of sort of eventually barrels off into the deep end because of it. his futile attempts to clean his own structure are frustrating enough, and the constant feeling of bugs crawling all over the inside of his body (which only gets progressively worse with time) does no favors either. however, the real big reason why he mentally declines is just because there's a ton of centi-worm things eating like fire through his neurons and other what-have-yous that iterators need to think and function. i think if he only got hit with one of these 3 things then he might have been able to hang onto his sanity, but with the triple combo he doesn't really stand a chance of doing much except stalling his functional death. which is good on him because if i was an iterator and my overseers told me i had a structure infestation, my mental health would have just preemptively swan dived off a bridge before anything even happened

anyhow, exponential parasite population growth meant exponential increase in all this other fun stuff, which means the time from the beginning of the infection to the time eoc is considered officially gone is startlingly short (for iterators, at least). it still took quite the while because losing your marbles is a loonnnng process, but still, yikes. its unfortunate because eoc was a real jokester pre-everything, and a cool guy to talk to. he was one of those people who could come up witty comments for anything like hed been ripped from the script of a sitcom. oh yeah, also, should have mentioned this earlier, but he ends up accidentally amassing a scavenger cult mid-insanity which goes hilariously bad because he's barely aware it's happening. nothing really works out for this poor iterator.

tldr: eoc gets parasites, they erode his brain, he goes nuts about it, (accidentally amasses a cult,) dies

[paimonial-rage]

type - heizou [random writing event] | requested by @ebi-samaaa

Shikanoin Heizou really wasn’t your type. Sure he was handsome, and yes, his voice was rather nice to listen to. His flirtatious nature was definitely attractive. If only his face wasn’t so childish looking. And if only he weren’t just a little bit taller. Really, it really was a shame. If it were not for those things, he would have stolen your heart right off the shelves.

And really, it truly was such a shame, for the man was desperately in love with you. Completely head over heels one could say. No matter how many times you tried to shake him off, he chased after you relentlessly. He wanted you with such a passion that you often had to stop your heart from skipping a beat whenever your thoughts inevitably lead toward him.

As you walked down the long hallways of Tenshukaku, you wondered if you’d see him this evening. It was the night of the full moon, after all. Wouldn’t it be such a romantic backdrop to highlight the excitement of the event you were soon to partake? He surely wouldn’t leave you hanging, would he? You did send him an invitation, after all.

So as you stepped into the central room, you couldn’t mask the smile that curled the corners of your lips. It was empty, not that you were very surprised. If you planned it right, the Tenryou Commission and its soldiers were currently occupying the Hiiragi complex on high alert. All that work only for their honored guest of the evening to be a no show. How sad, but it really wasn’t your fault they didn’t know how to read a calling card.

With a soft chuckle, you gazed fondly at the pedestal at the center of the room. There, sitting upon plush velvet, was your target for the evening—a slightly faded black pearl inlaid in a silver ring. It didn’t take you long to pluck it up from its stand to slide over your finger. And, oh, how the luster shined in the moonlight. But as much as you wished to lose yourself in its beauty, duty came calling.

“My my, Detective,” you crooned sweetly, “We really must stop meeting like this.”

A laugh came from behind.

“I gotta hand it to you. When you said you’d be targeting the Evening Moon’s Jewel on a night like this, not even I thought you’d come for the New Moon.”

You spun and leaned against the pedestal with a careless huff.

“Oh come now, Detective,” you cried with a mocking pout. “It shouldn’t have taken you very long to notice the Hiiragi’s Full Moon pearl is nothing better than an elaborate fake. You should be thanking me for giving you a little excitement on such a boring evening.”

He smiled as he took a step forward, his stance purposely relaxed.

“Thank you for breaking the law? We’ve known each other for so long. I must say I’m hurt.”

You grinned cheekily.

“Oh, don’t say that. I was only joking. I was looking ever so forward to meeting you this evening. I really don’t get to see you as often as I would like, you know, so let’s make the most of it, hm?”

And with that anemo powered punch he threw at you soon after, you really hoped he wouldn’t be smart enough to check out the hospital the day after.

[neversetyoufree]

Guess who noticed a really interesting tiny detail again?

Beloved mutual torterrachampion recently pointed out to me that the special thanks page in each vnc volume always has a nice crisp lineart version of the frame from its cover, and there's some really interesting details hidden in there. A bunch of the thanks pages even show extra details that aren't there on the actual color covers themselves!

In particular, volume 2's frame has this whole bottom bones/flowers arrangement that's totally left out/hidden on the actual cover:

And right off the bat, there's a couple things about that bottom arrangement that really catch my eye.

First of all, the position of the hands there strikes me as pretty important, since uh

reaching out and down toward Vanitas is a pretty major recurring image for Noé. It makes a lot of cool symbolic sense that this shape of reaching hand would show up in his frame, since it seems to be so important to his story.

Even more interesting than that, though, is what's going on with the left eye of that bottum skull. It looks like the skull's been partially shattered there around the eye, and while Mochijun does generally seem to enjoy a bit of cracked bone imagery, this one stands out to me because:

Something happened to Noé's eye when he was a kid, but he's never once acknowledged it, and we've never gotten a single hint at what it was beyond it happening with the traffickers. And now the one skull featured on his cover's frame has a huge crack around its eye.

This doesn't actually give us any new information beyond just drawing yet more attention to the eye mystery, but. DAMN.

The rest of the imagery in this frame (the book and pen, the mourning lilies, the reaching hands) is all pretty central to who/what Noé is as a character. So while the cracked skull is/could be just a clever little nod to the existence of the eye mystery, its surroundings make me wonder just how relevant that injury is going to be.

[obitv]

villain william revenant au? did i hear anyone ask for a villiam/ashe au? no? well. you're getting it anyway

the first time you meet william wisp, you think there's a dead body on your couch.

a leap in logic for the average person, maybe, but when your dad... does a lot of work you don't want to think about, and then there's a pale, bloody, not moving boy getting blood on your favourite couch, you think you might be allowed make those leaps.

the screaming probably isn't as excusable though. not that you screamed THAT MUCH, ok, but. you did a little. and dropped your bowl of pasta that you ahd been planning to sit on that couch and eat. and that's how, surprise! you found out the corpse was actually a totally normal beat up kid who forgot to blink at you for a solid minute.

in his defence, you were also staring at him. you hadn't even realised mark had come home yet, and bringing random kids back with him was- definitely a new one. you keep getting stuck on the same though -- he's on my couch. your pasta is all over the floor and there's a stranger in your home but the most important part of this to you is that fucking couch and you can't get your mouth working enough to form words.

when you're standing there, eyes locked with this kid and pasta on the floor, that's when your dad finally comes in. obviously you screaming had startled him, because he looks a mix of frantic and pissed off like you've never seen from him. but when he slams the door open and you both snap your heads over to look at him, he just sighs and drags a hand down his face.

"fuck's sake... ashe, go back to your room. now."

it takes a few seconds for what he said to register with you. however, you've only been awake for 15 minutes and all 15 of those were spent trying to stay awake long enough to make the pasta you dropped, so even after the words sink in you're still just opening and closing your mouth without any sound by the time the boy speaks up.

"is this your fucking house?"

mark turns from lightly glaring at you to sending daggers at the boy. "you keep your fuckin' mouth shut, kid. ashe, go, now."

"no, hey! you can't just randonly bring me to some fucking house and not tell me? when you said you 'knew a place' i could stay until mal got back i figured you meant, like, a lair! a wave-cave! not a- are we in the fucking suburbs?"

"no, no, we ain't fuckin' doin' this right now! ashe, go to your room."

you watch this verbal tennis with a growing interest. you really, really want to ask what's going on, but- you haven't seen mark this pissed off in... a long time. and besides, if this kid is telling the truth, your dad offered to let him stay here, so. you'll get your chance to ask questions later.

you still need to go get breakfast, anyway.

-

a few hours later, when you're in the middle of throughly blasting your brain out with every speaker you own, your bedroom door creaks open. now that you're awake, and the blood's been cleaned off his face, you get a much better look at him.

and, because your life is a disaster, you realise that he's kinda cute. still dead-looking, even when hes walking, but there's... an appeal there.

you also think you might be finally losing your mind.

he goes to talk, then winces as he seems to register the music you still have on blast, whoch is when you also register the music and scramble to turn it down. and try not to blush. try really, really hard not to blush.

"hey, uh... hey. sorry for... scaring you earlier. and being in your house... wa- your dad didn't tell me anyone else lived here. or where here is. i- i'm william? william, that's me! you don't have to tell me your name or anything, but i. wanted to apologise. because i'll be staying here for a couple days, until my mentor is back. uh. yeah. sorry. again."

you do not know how you are supposed to respond to this. briefly, you wonder if you've watched any anime with this premise.

"uh. cool." and you give a thumbs up. you sit there, you stare this kid, william, who has probably been yelled at by your dad for the last few hours which you KNOW is terrifying, and, again, is cute, and you give him a thumbs up. and an attempt at a smile that feels a lot more like a grimace because you don't know how to be smooth to save your life. "i'm ashe, by the way. i'm not used to- having people over. or talking in general."

he nods, and smiles at you. just a small quirk of the lips really, but you count it as a win that you haven't immediately scared him off. "yeah. sick. i'll... go. now. nice to meet you, ashe."

it is unreasonably difficult to slow your heartbeat down again after he closes the door. you, ashe winters, are so fucked.

[crintsiewintsey]

jort storm

[comeon-intothemadhouse]

Bruising my ass cheek on the toilet seat bc of my blood thinners was not on my to do list today and yet here we are

[tubifexx]

I've been thinking about the concept of a drunk Carrion ever since it's been bought up.

Okay, so alcohol basically has to pass through your bloodstream in order to help get you intoxicated. However, due to Carrion not exactly having a bloodstream, nor skin to help hold in all of their blood. Does that mean it would sorta...filter out?

Like, they wouldn't have a desire to drink alcohol. They know what the stuff does, but even if they didn't, they just don't like the taste of the stuff. It also carries no nutritional values for them.

BUT! If they somehow would digest a large amount of alcohol, i think it would just simply... ooze out of their body then have a lasting effect on them. They might move a bit more disorganized, but yeah.

So so far, im leaning towards No, Carrion can't get drunk. Buzzed, but not drunk.

But then i went, 'Ya know. Maybe worms CAN get drunk?' so i tippy tippity my ass to google to see if different kinds of worms can get drunk. And guess what? They used to. Used To.

Why? Why would you do that? Apparently, with a small tweak of a certain molecular. They just...dont get drunk anymore. So, that helps in the 'Carrion can't get drunk' theory, science Bullfuckry. But Wait, there's MORE:

So, the test worm lives up to about 15 days. With a tiny amount of alcohol, it lived up to 40 days. The worms had dissolved the cholesterol in ethanol. It's a solvent. The little guys just Did That on their own.

So, take away is either 'Carrion is immune to Drunk' or 'Carrion breaks down the liquor and ends up living LONGER' and im not sure which I'd rather go with

[zecretsanta]

hey im trying to submit my fic and the option to insert a Keep Reading break isn't there for me within a submission? on desktop. do you know of a workaround for it? my fic is like 2000 words

:readmore:

the indent is breaking the formatting, that’s on purpose in this answer to showcase exactly what the code is. i type pretty much exclusively on mobile and readmore always works to make a cut. here’s how it looks in action:

—mod zero

[peapod20001]

"literal corpse" PEA??? Am I missing some context? 😢 /lh

Maybe? Obviously I can’t know what you know lol but p much I just drew an oc but dead. That’s what literal corpse means. She’s just dead </3

[badolmen]

Ngl my current conspiracy theory is that Tumblr Corporate saw us tear into TumblrLive with our teeth and pushed the drop of polls to distract us while they continued to make the UI of this site even worse

and it fucking worked.

[skullshoal]

this is such a sweet comment on my webcomic bwahhh

[violasgamingpalace]

Been theory crafting a version of Three Houses where Byleth makes the route choice at Chapter 12 instead of the prologue, and as part of that imagining the students picking their professor instead of the professor picking the house they want to teach. This is my attempt at figuring out your starting class. Wanted to keep characters similar to their canon personalities. (not the biggest three houses nerd so let me know if you disagree on placements)

Hanneman's Class

Linhardt- Crest research

Edelgard- crests research

Hubert- follows edelgard, but hanneman also knows reason magic.

Claude- Hanneman because he figures he'll learn the most secrets that way? (I'm sorry but no way he picks Byleth, merc knows NOTHING)

Hilda- follows Claude

Annette-Has a support with Hanneman?

Mercedes - Wants to go Hanneman to be with Annette

Ignatz-is here to be a Knight and Hanneman could help with that???

Manuela's Class

Ferdinand- looks up to Manuela

Dorothea- looks up to Manuela even more, obvious choice.

Lythesia- no to hanneman for crests, She likes Faith, so Manuela.

Lorenz- Noble man wants to go Hanneman, but does have support with Manuela? And means he can be with Ferdinand.

Dimitri-goes Manuela to follow Ingrid/Sylvain

Ingrid-manuela, I guess? No knight professor

Sylvain- Manuela? I guess? He has a support and does auto-join F/Byleth. Sylvain wanting to see boobs brings the Blue Lion friend group along

Caspar-Manuela, but just to have a place to be

Byleth's Class

Petra- Sword connection, and dont think petra REALLY would learn much from other profs?

Bernie- too anxious to sign up, so ends up with Byleth

Raphael- forgets to go to signups, Byleth it is!

Leonie- Byleth for sure. Jeralt connection and she wants to be a Merc.

Dedue-Wants to go Manuela to Follow Dimitri but the school said the class was full (Feels vaguely racially motivated)

Felix-Byleth no question

Ashe-no Knight professor, but Ashe is just happy to be here, doesnt really care about professor.

Marianne- Horse girl wants to go with Hannerman but crests are to blame for going Byleth

Things I like- Wanted the Byleth class to feel like the weirdo group with very little going for them, and thats def this class. Everyone is either anti-social, a commoner with low expectations, or racially marked as other. Now white clouds focuses on you replacing them by recuiting the elite of fodlan society teaching to your student's strengths and making them capable.

Three black Eagles in class ensues that Byleth will have to fight their old students if they go on most routes, and if they go Black Eagles they'll still fight old students they taught

Ashe in class for Lonato Chapter

Things i dont like- skill proficiency wasnt set up with this in mind. While we have 1 tank and 1 mage, no one else can REALLY be trained as a reason mage, we have fourish archers, twoish lance users, two speedy sword users (three if ashe goes thief!), and a lot of units that want to go riding.

Its really hard to imagine Dimitri being so casually cruel to Dedue. Maybe we get a scene where Dimitri heroically sacrficies hanging out with Sylbain and Ingrid so Dedue can be with Manuela for a bit?

Edelgard and claude in the same class despite their total lack of connection. But! Edelgard and Hilda in the same class? Let us see how much Hilda HATES edelgard. It would be funny.

[dragmiire]

genuinely love the fact zelda is off being (redacted) so everybody is impersonating her, it sparks SO much joy. i honestly love fake zelda more than i like real zelda, it cracks me up.

(also love the fact they planted her here to pretend she got the botw link treatment)

[foolishrats]

Hate going on Pinterest n getting blasted with two different flavors of dysphoria bc I'm genderfluid. It fuckin sucks!!!

Being a fat, average looking, visibly feminine person n just being like,,

"I will never be a skinny girl/guy who looks good in cool clothes"

And also "I will never be a buff hairy bear of a man"

I am just!!!! Unhappy with the way I look again n there is literally nothing I can do about it

[redux-iterum]

Lynx’s Struggle Through Survivors - Now a Double Feature

Because I was busy in December with Christmas, I had to move my review to January. So here we are, a review of both The Broken Path and The Endless Lake. Read the previous stuff if you haven’t already. Let’s get down to business.

The Broken Path

I like the idea of the naming ceremony, nothing else to comment on it, save for the fact we seem to have timeskipped… some time in the future. I wasn’t paying much attention to what season it was before the timeskip. It was a little jarring, but necessary, I’d gander.

Unrelated, Whine frickin sucks. I want to punt the little bastard into orbit.

Okay, about Alpha, he’s really really indecisive. I’m really torn on this. For one, the main plot of the book is Fiery recognizing Alpha’s been sucking as leader and challenging him, only to get captured by humans and die. For one, how has anyone in this deluded pack snapped out of their delusion to recognize their leader’s been sucking? For another, how has Alpha allowed his pack to make decisions without his input if he’s trying to keep an iron-tight grip on them? I don’t know, he seems like he’s supposed to be an intimidating leader who’s trapped a bunch of well-meaning individuals in his control, but it seems something isn’t adding up and I can’t quite articulate how it’s wrong.

I think Fiery would fit better in the role of “Leader of the Alpha Sucks Club” who would reach out to Lucky when he sees he’s getting the ire of their leader. Fiery only joined this pack because Moon insists Alpha is a good leader and is mostly here to one day usurp Alpha when the time comes. Mulch would be another member of the club, as much as he’s kind of a turdgoblin. Fiery might suspect Sweet (the sleeper agent) is secretly against Alpha, but he’s not sure and she’s doing her best to avoid Alpha’s suspicion. Lucky would be the first outsider dog to join, followed by Martha shortly after adopting Lick, Grunt, and Wiggle. Bella I think should join later on; she detests Alpha both personally and on principle, but she’s got a strong Cain instinct that deters her from allying with her brother. Moon would join the club after Fiery dies and Alpha practically celebrates that he’s keeping his position.

Terror’s so strange as a minor antagonist. The Fear-Dog is a stupid concept on principle, but the dog pantheon is narrow enough that you can’t easily add a new god into the lineup. The more gods there are in a pantheon, the easier it is to slide a new one into their ranks and have others go, “seems legit”. Regarding Terror’s pack, I’m surprised his entire pack doesn’t just look at each other and go, “Hey, there’s a bunch of us and only one of him, let’s get rid of this thorn in our paws.”

Anyway, our baby girl has a new name, Storm. Time for her to join Firestar and Dovewing in the “our names are glaringly obvious hints for our role in a prophecy” club.

The Endless Lake

I really don’t have a lot to say here. This just caused a lot more confusion than necessary and everything went by so quickly.

I really feel bad for Lucky. He’s trying so hard to help these dogs out and they’re so insistent that tradition is the way to go. Alpha was abusing his position as leader and there was barely anything anyone could do about it within the dogs’ code of honor. His situation with Sweet kind of makes me think of a reverse Fireheart and Sandstorm situation, where Sweet’s barely giving Lucky any benefit of the doubt and you wonder how he still pines for her.

So Alpha died, but not really. Why did he ally himself with the Fierce Dogs? It doesn’t seem at all in his character.

The condition of Sunshine’s pelt really made me wish there was a nice human in that lighthouse who could take her in and shave her pelt off. She’s really hit-or-miss for me, but I’d be satisfied with seeing her end up in the care of a loving human.

I’ve been giving Dullard real-time commentary as I read the book, and a thought that came to me was what if Lick/Storm and Grunt/Fang were pitbulls instead of dobermans? And the entire Fierce Pack were a conglomeration of dogs kept for dogfighting? Their version of dog religion would be incredibly warped, and their poor treatment would be the blame for their behavior. Fang could take the classically antagonistic role of the pitbull archetype while Storm would take the modern sympathetic role.

Before we get to it next book, I gotta wonder. What. Is. The Storm of Dogs. I don’t understand how a brawl between dogs would be the end of the world to the dogs’ eyes? It makes little sense. I can’t figure out how to effectively polish it.

Combining Lucky’s affinity with a crow (which interestingly didn’t appear in this book as far as I can recall) and his visions with the Storm of Dogs, I gotta wonder if he’d be some kind of chosen seer for a god of death (even more interestingly, if it was Earth herself that was his patron god).

So both of these books were slogs, I really want Storm of Dogs to… at least kind of be satisfying. A little. Just a bit. Please no one pull a Scourge and have someone else kill the villains anticlimactically.

[princess-of-purple-prose]

[ID: Scum Villain fanart featuring Zhuzhi-lang and Tianlang-jun. The first page features shows Zhuzhi-lang, a long-haired young man with scales on his face and robes, clawed fingertips, and snakes curling around his neck, looking surprised and earnest as well as sticking out his forked tongue with disgust at a sheet of paper.

A colored piece shows him in green robes, looking nervous. There's also a piece of Tianlang-jun laughing vigorously patting Zhuzhi-lang on the shoulder as he boisterously exclaims, "My nephew is such a catch!" Zhuzhi-lang buries his face in his hands with mortification.

The second piece shows Tianlang-jun in color. He's a broad-shouldered grinning man with gray streaks in his hair. To the side, Shang Qinghua says contemplatively, "You know, Tianlang-jun is kind of a--" Shen Qingqiu scowls, "Don't you dare finish that sentence." Shang Qinghua exclaims, "You don't even know what I was gonna say!!" and Shen Qingqiu replies, "I was also raised in the 21st century and have eyes, I know what you were about to call my father in law." Below that is an uncolored piece of Tianglang-jun laughing beside Zhuzhi-lang, who seems curious. End ID]

Them🥰🥰